Image Credit: British Library
This month the University of Redlands Theatre department
presents a stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility by the actor and playwright Kate Hamill.
Sense and Sensibility,
Austen’s first novel, focuses on two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood,
seeking to secure their fortunes by marrying well. Austen initially told the
story in the form of an exchange of letters between the sisters, a common
narrative device of the day, and titled her sketch “Elinor and Marianne”. She
had nearly 15 years to rework the structure of her novel and develop its characters
before publishing in 1811 (Heath).
Austen’s novel has inspired a number of adaptations over the
years, including the well-known 1995 film directed by Ang Lee and starring Emma
Thompson and Kate Winslet, Ben Winters’ 2009 parody Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and a 2015 chamber musical composed
by Paul Gordon. The most recent stage adaptation is by the New York based playwright
and actor Kate Hamill, who has made her name adapting nineteenth century novels
for the twenty-first century stage and plans to adapt each of Austen’s novels (Sense and Sensibility was her first).
Hamill was drawn to adapting Austen novels for the opportunity
to give voice to strong, complex female characters. She described feeling
frustrated with a lack of roles for female leads, noting that three out of four
plays are written by men (Murphy C1). Writing stage versions of renowned novels allowed
her to create “instant classics” for the theatre while also providing her with
meaty leading roles; she has starred in many of her own adaptations, including
the New York premiere of Sense and Sensibility
with the Bedlam Theatre Company (acting opposite her real-life partner,
Jason O’Connell).
Hamill sees the roles of actor and writer as mutually
compatible, observing, “Actors generally tend to make great playwrights because
if you’re interested enough in acting, you have an ear for dialogue. You have a
brain for how different characters react to different situations … you can look
at stories from all sides. I definitely think it’s made me a better actor to be
a writer" (Smart 12).
Hamill approaches each adaptation project by seeking the
story’s central theme and striving to say something new about a familiar work. She
distilled Sense and Sensibility to
the question, “Do you break the rules or follow them?” and updated Austen’s
English milieu for the faster pace of modern-day America by playing up Austen’s
cutting sense of humor and by mounting set pieces on wheels, setting them in
perpetual motion (Marks C3).
In writing Sense and
Sensibility, Jane Austen explored “the gaps that occur between language and
behavior, feeling and action: gaps that the unscrupulous exploit, the naïve are
trapped by, and the wise must use every resource of imagination to repair, or
at least understand" (Heath). Adaptations like Hamill’s suggest that Austen’s
insights are still fresh and urgent today, in a time when social pressure seems
equally intense and the stakes for self-definition equally great.
Works Cited
Heath, William W. "Sense and Sensibility: Overview." Reference Guide to English Literature, edited by D. L. Kirkpatrick, 2nd ed., St. James Press, 1991. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420000400/LitRC?u=redl79824&sid=LitRC&xid=9ec66129. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.
Murphy, Mary Jo. “A Madcap Austen, Alfresco.” New York Times, 30 June 2017, p. C1. Nexis
Uni, https://advance-lexis-com.ezproxy.redlands.edu/api/permalink/440b8679-fd8d-4509-a1c6-11322ee46a86/?context=1516831
Smart, Jack. “Kate Hamill, ‘Sense and Sensibility’.” Back Stage, vol. 57, no. 25, 23 June 2016,
p. 12. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.redlands.edu/docview/1803827321?accountid=14729.
Marks, Peter. “’Sense and Sensibility’ Challenges its
Stars with Moving Parts.” Washington Post,
2 November 2016, p. C3. Nexis Uni, https://advance-lexis-com.ezproxy.redlands.edu/api/permalink/440b8679-fd8d-4509-a1c6-11322ee46a86/?context=1516831
Additionally, Ms. Marvel, written by G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by Adrian Alphona features super-heroine Kamala Khan, a Muslim American teen who grapples with her burgeoning superpowers and familial expectations.
